This invention relates generally to the field of creating samples of music. More particularly, this invention relates to automatically creating samples of music for use in so called super distribution.
In recent years, providing samples of a musical selection has become a popular marketing tool for record companies as well as other organizations marketing music. By creating electronic samples of a computer readable music file, the samples can be distributed as a marketing tool according to various schemes often referred to as super distribution. In other embodiments, music samples are used as promotional tools at record stores, kiosks and the like.
Traditionally, the creation of such music samples has been a manual process. In creating such samples, an engineer or other entity listens to the music selection and identifies the selection""s so-called xe2x80x9chook.xe2x80x9d The xe2x80x9chookxe2x80x9d is the familiar or repetitive part of a song, perhaps including a chorus, that is believed to be representative of the song and is believed to be most suitable to pique the prospective buyer""s interest. The engineer then generally extracts a small segment of music from the overall music selection, generally starting somewhat before the hook and extending slightly past it.
While this technique may provide a nearly optimized mechanism for selecting a portion of the music to sample that is believed by marketers or music experts to be most attractive to potential buyers, the labor intensiveness of such a process is undesirable. The labor intensiveness may limit the availability and thus the distribution of such samples. Moreover, the casual listener may be discouraged from creation of samples by the need for specialized editing software.
The present invention relates generally to creation of music samples. Objects, advantages and features of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon consideration of the following detailed description of the invention.
In one embodiment of the present invention method of creating a sample of a computer readable audio file includes identifying a starting point for the sample in the audio file, the starting point being at a fixed time Tstart measured from the beginning of the audio file; identifying an ending point for the sample in the audio file, the ending point being at a fixed time Tstart+Tsample=Tstop from the beginning of the audio file; and storing audio data representing the audio between Tstart and Tstop as an audio sample file.
A method of creating a sample of a computer readable file containing entertainment content consistent with embodiments of the present invention includes identifying a starting point for the sample in the file, the starting point being identified by information embedded within the file; identifying an ending point for the sample in the file, the ending point being identified by information embedded within the file; and storing data representing the content between the starting point and the ending point as a sample file.
An electronic storage medium consistent with certain embodiments of the invention stores instructions which, when executed on a programmed processor, carry out a process of creating a sample of content stored as a computer readable file by identifying a starting point for the sample in the file, the starting point being at a fixed time Tstart measured from the beginning of the file; identifying an ending point for the sample in the file, the ending point being at a fixed time Tstart+Tsample=Tstop from the beginning of the file; and storing data representing the content between Tstart and Tstop as a sample file.
An electronic storage medium consistent with certain other embodiments of the invention stores instructions which, when executed on a programmed processor, carry out a process of creating a sample of content stored as a computer readable file, by identifying a starting point for the sample in the file, the starting point being identified by information embedded within the file; identifying an ending point for the sample in the file, the ending point being identified information embedded within the file; and storing music data representing the content between the starting point and the ending point as a sample file.
A method, consistent with certain embodiments of the invention, of creating a sample of content stored in a computer readable file includes identifying a starting point for the sample in the file, the starting point being at a fixed time Tstart measured from the beginning of the file; identifying an ending point for the sample in the file, the ending point being at a fixed time Tstart+Tsample=Tstop from the beginning of the file; and storing data representing the content between Tstart and Tstop as a sample file.
An apparatus consistent with an embodiment of the invention that creates a sample of a computer readable audio file includes a programmed processor. A program operates on the programmed processor to identify a starting point for the sample in the audio file, the starting point being at a fixed time Tstart measured from the beginning of the audio file, and identify an ending point for the sample in the audio file, the ending point being at a fixed time Tstart+Tsample=Tstop from the beginning of the audio file. The audio data representing the audio between Tstart and Tstop as an audio sample file.
An electronic storage medium consistent with embodiments of the invention includes a digital file containing electronic entertainment content and instructions, embedded within the digital file, that define a starting point and an ending point of a predefined sample of the electronic entertainment content when read by a programmed processor.
A method and apparatus of sampling a music selection to produce a music clipping suitable for super distribution, according to embodiments of the invention, sample a computer readable music file or other content file by defining a starting point for the sample at a fixed time from the beginning of the music selection. The stopping point is similarly selected as a fixed time from the starting point for the sample. The actual fixed times can be varied based upon the genre of the music when another embodiment flags or headers can be used to define the starting and ending time of the sample. Once the sample has been defined, data from the sample is extracted and compressed to reduce the file size to a size suitable for super distribution.
The above summaries are intended to illustrate exemplary embodiments of the invention, which will be best understood in conjunction with the detailed description to follow, and are not intended to limit the scope of the appended claims.